Ice led the attack brilliantly- a mammoth spell from the top end saw the top order decimated early, and included a sequence of 45 dot balls (before a 'no-ball' spoilt what would have been a truly amazing '50'). Chris worried them with his pace, but runs were coming more easily as a result of this pace. We therefore took pace off the ball, and thanks to accurate disciplined bowling from both ends, we restricted Crawley consistently to an astounding 2.5 runs per over. On a trademark Nigel Thomas flat track with the usual lightning outfield at Hove Rec this was an incredible achievement.

A big part of this was also our ground fielding which was of a consistently high standard. They were scared of taking simple singles, and easy second runs I think partly as a result of arriving at the ground and seeing Chris put us through our paces with fielding drills. While there is always room for improvement, and none of the several 'half-chances' that came our way were taken, overall I was really pleased by the effort in the field.

Fielder-of-the-day went to Justin, who's exemplary glove-work behind the stumps is often overlooked or assumed, he manages to make ordinary throws look tidy, wayward bowling is taken with no fuss,  a leg-side stumping from Ice was too good for both batsman and umpire, who almost understandably wasn't paying full attention, as you would never expect such quality several levels higher than the league we play in.

141 all out off 47 overs exactly was unlikely ever to be enough, and so it proved as we comfortably knocked the total off. Crawley's opening bowlers looked useful and required some care to play, but we regularly despatched the bad balls to the boundary, and their second string posed only sporadic threat- a few memorable shots being a couple of trademark square-cuts from Will Dawes' blade, and a couple of text-book lofted straight drives from the posing Jon Burnill.

If I were to be critical, I would say losing 4 wickets was careless in the circumstances, but there will be other days, and other totals where it will be more vital to keep our wickets in tact, and I'm happy(-ish) to save them for those occasions.